Northern Montenegro, the mountain half of the country

Here’s the quickest way to get your head round northern Montenegro. It takes up more than half the country, 7,304 of the 13,883 km² in MONSTAT’s figures, yet fewer than a quarter of the people live there, 152,590 at the 2023 census. This is the half of Montenegro made of mountains, canyons, forest and glacial lakes, with small towns and slow roads, and for me it’s the strongest argument for leaving the coast.

Thirteen municipalities, two ways to travel

MONSTAT groups Andrijevica, Berane, Bijelo Polje, Gusinje, Kolašin, Mojkovac, Petnjica, Plav, Pljevlja, Plužine, Rožaje, Šavnik and Žabljak into its Northern region. It has no council or government of its own and exists for statistics, but as a travel area it works well. The national tourist board bills all thirteen as its mountain towns and shares three national parks between them.

The tourism numbers tell you how people actually travel here. In 2024 the region logged nearly 148,000 arrivals, and 51,488 of them went to Kolašin and 42,214 to Žabljak. The bigger towns, Bijelo Polje, Berane, Pljevlja and Rožaje, see hardly any visitors. Put simply, the tourist north is two bases, Žabljak and Kolašin, and the rest is a quieter north for anyone with time on their hands.

Durmitor and the Tara, the bits not to skip

Durmitor National Park became a national park in 1952 and joined the World Heritage list in 1980. UNESCO counts some fifty peaks above 2,000 metres, glacial lakes, the gorske oči, and the canyons of four rivers, the Tara foremost among them. An adult ticket is €5 a day and covers the visitor centre and the nature trails.

The Tara Canyon is the other side of the same park. The national tourist board gives it 78 km in length and 1,333 metres at its deepest, and UNESCO describes it as Europe’s deepest gorge. You see it from above on the Đurđevića Tara Bridge and from below on a raft, and for me it’s the thing that makes the drive up worthwhile even if you only have a day.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Žabljak on Expedia and filter by area before price.

Kolašin, Biogradska Gora and the Morača

Kolašin sits at 954 metres on the right bank of the Tara and is a stop on the Belgrade to Bar railway. It lives off skiing in winter, with the Kolašin 1600 and Kolašin 1450 resorts linked into roughly 45 km of pistes, and off the forest in summer. Biogradska Gora, a few kilometres away, has protected a 1,600-hectare stand of primeval forest around a glacial lake since 1878, and costs €4 to enter.

To the south, the road drops through the Morača canyon towards Podgorica. The national tourist board lists it as one of two routes from Podgorica to Žabljak, 124 km via Kolašin and Mojkovac against 122 via Nikšić, and it passes Morača Monastery, already inside Kolašin municipality.

Piva, Pljevlja and the Lim valley

West of Durmitor, Plužine looks over Lake Piva, a reservoir of 112.5 km² and 187.5 metres deep according to MONSTAT, and Piva Monastery was moved stone by stone, with its 1,250 m² of frescoes, when the water rose. Further north, Pljevlja has the Husein Pasha Mosque with its 42-metre minaret, and the Roman finds of Municipium S, more than 1,200 objects from its graves kept in the local museum.

To the east, the Lim runs down through Plav, Andrijevica, Berane and Bijelo Polje. That’s where you’ll find Lake Plav, Prokletije National Park, created in 2009 and home to Zla Kolata at 2,534 metres according to National Parks, and the Đalovića cave, the country’s longest at 17,500 metres according to the national tourist board.

To sleep close to everything, search places to stay in Žabljak on Booking.com and filter by area before price.

Seasons and getting about

The north has two seasons. From June to September you walk, raft and sleep in cool air, and the national tourist board recommends July and August in Žabljak precisely to escape the heat further south. From December to March the snow takes over. Kolašin’s weather station had snow lying on 71 days in 2024 and a January mean of 0.6 °C, and Pljevlja 0.2 °C, according to Hydrometeorological Institute data published by MONSTAT.

A hire car is the practical choice; just remember traffic drives on the right. ZPCG trains stop at Kolašin, Mojkovac and Bijelo Polje, but Žabljak, Plužine, Šavnik, Plav and Gusinje are road-only, and the mountain roads are narrow and slow. Coming up from central Montenegro, the natural ways in are via Nikšić to Žabljak or up the Morača to Kolašin.